Thugs out for Blue blood

Two sharp-eyed Brooklyn cops yesterday thwarted a drug-and-cash heist by nine heavily armed robbers dead-set on blowing away any cops who showed up — just as in the drug-related home invasion that killed Officer Peter Figoski, The Post has learned. The robbery crew was targeting a heroin dealer in East New York — the same neighborhood that Figoski spent his career protecting. A thief shot him after robbing a pot dealer Dec. 12. “They had the heavy firepower in case the cops were called,” said a law-enforcement source. Read More: New York Post

Bodega worker slain

Masked thieves followed a Bronx bodega worker home and shot him dead — within earshot of his son — in what cops believe was a botched robbery attempt. Investigators said Anselmo Porras, 51, left his store at 2840 Briggs Ave. just before midnight Tuesday, and was shadowed by three would-be robbers. As Porras opened the door to his apartment on Marion Avenue in Bedford Park, a short distance from his store, one of the men pulled a gun and tried to force his way inside. Porras, who had 12 children, struggled and ran into the apartment, screaming to his son inside, according to law-enforcement sources. Read More: New York Post

Burned body in Pennsylvania identified as Brooklyn business owner

A 30-year-old Brooklyn cafe owner who mysteriously vanished on Halloween was identified by authorities yesterday as the man found shot to death and burned in the woods of eastern Pennsylvania on Nov. 1, the following morning. Joshua Rubin — whose body was only recently identified through DNA and dental tests — opened the Whisk Bakery Cafe on Newkirk Avenue a month before disappearing. A day or two after his body was found near Allentown, his credit card was used at the Woodbury Commons retail outlets in Orange County, NY, sources told The Post.Read More: New York Post

Wave of bombings across Iraqi capital kills 69

A wave of 16 bombings ripped across Baghdad Thursday, killing at least 69 people in the worst violence in Iraq for months. The apparently coordinated attacks struck days after the last American forces left the country and in the midst of a major government crisis between Shiite and Sunni politicians that has sent sectarian tensions soaring. The bombings may be linked more to the U.S. withdrawal than the political crisis, but all together, the developments heighten fears of a new round of Shiite-Sunni sectarian bloodshed like the one a few years back that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war. Read More: New York Post

Teacher’s exposure lesson

Former Bronx teacher Melissa Petro, who was forced to give up her teaching job after revealing she worked as a hooker and stripper, will pose for Penthouse’s February issue for a story charmingly titled, “Unrepentant Whore.” The ex-educator, who now makes a living writing about her sexy past, has mixed feelings about the pictures, in which she appears partly nude. The shoot, at New York S&M dungeon Pandora’s Box, involved Petro posing in the clichéd role of a sexy teacher. In a column for xoJane.com, she writes that the photographer’s “vision, as he explained it that day, was for the ‘hooker’ teacher to reclaim her power — to take the butt of the joke and turn it around. When the shoot was over, amidst my signing of releases galore — including a creepy moment when they made me take a picture holding up my ID — I felt a momentary panic. Read More: New York Post